Should Ireland appeal the Apple ruling

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Purple I am sure we don't want this turned into a rerun of the great bail out debates. But I am surprised, nay disappointed, that you appear to be firmly in the "Ireland the victim, Frankfurt the demon" camp.

You should have followed your instincts and refrained from quoting Mr Bank Guarantee a Master Stroke. The Irish Times coverage of the same auditors' report cites the finding about burden sharing as an afterthought and then only that as a point of audit it should have been examined before being rejected. Of course Mr Confiscate 10% of MNC Irish Assets put the much more colourful (purple if you like:)) spin on this aspect. After all anything less and he would soon lose his fan base.
 
I'm in no way saying that we were the victims in the overall context of our debt and general mess but I reject the notion that the EU and it's various arms were in any way honest brokers, that they keep their own rules or that they don't have an larger agenda here.
 
username123 said:
So easy, why weren't we all doing it..... less tax for all!
What's annoying is that you know this loophole would've been closed in a heartbeat if Joe Soap could do similar.
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It would be difficult for Joe Soap to arrange for the management of his business to be conducted from abroad though - he would need a foreign office and directors to be based there.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to avail of it myself!!
 
Firefly said:
It would be difficult for Joe Soap to arrange for the management of his business to be conducted from abroad though - he would need a foreign office and directors to be based there.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to avail of it myself!!
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Given that small to medium sized businesses make such small profits the corporation tax rate and ways of manipulating it are of no real consequence.
 
Purple said:
Given that small to medium sized businesses make such small profits the corporation tax rate and ways of manipulating it are of no real consequence.
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I agree completely - leaving profits in a company means you will more than likely pay corp tax & then income tax.
 
A slight diversion here, to minor but I think very interesting point.

Duke of Marmalade said:
According to the ruling profits were internally allocated within the Irish branch to a "head office" which wasn't based anywhere, not Ireland not the US.
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The EU commission seems to have been happy with this arrangement in regard to profits arising from interest earned.

again from the commissions press statement.

"The only activities that can be associated with the "head offices" are limited decisions taken by its directors (many of which were at the same time working full-time as executives for Apple Inc.) on the distribution of dividends, administrative arrangements and cash management. These activities generated profits in terms of interest that, based on the Commission's assessment, are the only profits which can be attributed to the "head offices"."

This seems to me to suggest that the commission is ok with certain activities not being taxed anywhere.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Protocol that seems an oversimplification of the situation. According to the ruling profits were internally allocated within the Irish branch to a "head office" which wasn't based anywhere, not Ireland not the US. Loophole suggests something in the legislative framework which anybody could use. This does not seem to be the case, Apple came up with a fairytale of their own and got the Irish Revenue to approve it, as I understand it for them specifically but not made universally available.
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Correct, ASI wasn't tax-resident anywhere.

The Revenue didn't seem to care that it wasn't tax-resident anywhere else, as long as they were sure that it wasn't tax-resident here??

It had a branch here, yes, and the Revenue agreed on a formula on how to allocate profits to that branch.
 
Letter from the French Riviera

I'm in France and found Le Monde's take on this a very interesting read. (Le Monde is sort of France's Irish Times).
They describe the 13bn as "Irlande a touché le jackpot" and express sarcastic incredulity that Dublin is refusing to accept this gift. It notes that SF are the exception in wanting to keep the money and what interested me most is that they (correctly) describe SF as the "branche legale de l'IRA" something that wouldn't be PC these days in Ireland.
They give a short background to why Dublin is appealing the ruling. They describe how using our English speaking workforce and what they call "dumping fiscal" Ireland has attracted all the big names from Silicon Valley and that one quarter of the private sector workforce are now employed by US multinationals.

There is no doubt that there is a perception in these parts that Ireland has been milking it ever since our entry into the EC. Maybe Purple is right and there is an agenda to put us in our place.

I think Brexit helps big time here. If this "dumping fiscal" plug is pulled you could well see a popular groundswell to get Ireland to follow Britain through the exit.
 
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Ceist Beag said:
Just out of curiosity then Duke, where could we find out what % tax Renault pay in France?
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Renault Finanical Statements are all online.

https://group.renault.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/renault-consolidated-accounts-2014.pdf

Income before taxes and share in net income of associates and joint ventures €772m

Statutory income tax rate in France, including the additional contribution 38%
Theoretical tax charge €293m
Current and deferred tax charge (Actual tax charge) €136m

Your answer seems to be 17.6%.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
They describe the 13bn as "Irlande a touché le jackpot" and express sarcastic incredulity that Dublin is refusing to accept this gift.
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F: "Here, we killed your golden goose for you."
!: "You what!?"
F: "Ingrate"

The rest of the flock may take some consolation from the fact that we weren't the ones holding the knife, but I expect they'll be testing their wings just in case.
 
T McGibney said:
Renault Finanical Statements are all online.

https://group.renault.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/renault-consolidated-accounts-2014.pdf

Income before taxes and share in net income of associates and joint ventures €772m

Statutory income tax rate in France, including the additional contribution 38%
Theoretical tax charge €293m
Current and deferred tax charge (Actual tax charge) €136m

Your answer seems to be 17.6%.
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That seems strange given that the effective tax rate of the top CAC companies is 8.2%
 
Here are the footnotes to the Tax Note on page 29.

(1) In France, the Group is liable for an exceptional 10.7% contribution applicable until the end of the 2015 financial year. The theoretical tax rate including this exceptional contribution stands at 38.0%. (2) The main countries contributing to the tax rate differential in 2014 are Korea, Morocco, Romania, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. (3) Other impacts are primarily permanent differences, income subject to reduced tax rates, the cost of tax reassessments, and prior year adjustments. They also include the effect of the differential between the income tax rate including the exceptional contribution applicable in France (38.0%) used for the tax breakdown between theoretical and actual taxes, and the 34.43% tax rate used to calculate deferred taxes for the French tax consolidation group (unfavourable effect of €25 million for 2014 and €76 million for 2013).
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Clear as mud.
 
transneoir interesting you should mention the golden goose.
Le Monde said:
Pas question pour Dublin, dans ces conditions, de mettre en danger la poule aux oeufs d'or
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"There is no question of Dublin, in this situation, putting in danger the hen with the golden eggs.":rolleyes:
 
Ok that settles it. If Le Monde doesn't want us to appeal, we have only one course of action. We must appeal as clearly it's in our self interest.
Le Monde would never urge us do to something that was in Irish interests.
 
Dear Green-Eyed EU member states,

If you want to reduce your own corporation tax to what we charge, off you go and stop whinging.

Firefly.
 
So, after reading up on the matter a little more, I do not think Ireland should appeal the ruling.

From my understanding now, Apple created a system for the sole purpose of tax avoidance and the Irish Government allowed this.

The EU are not attacking our tax laws, in my view, they appear to be saying pay the rate that applied to every company at that time, 12.5%.
 
ppmeath you seem to be basing your conclusion on the merits of the ruling. Ireland faces a thornier decision than that. The question is how best to keep "la poule aux oeufs d'or" on board. Apple is protesting a huge injustice with a lot of, I presume faux, indignation. If Ireland does not support Apple to the hilt on this it could backfire big time.
 
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